BACKGROUND/AIM: Erythropoietin-producing hepatocellular carcinoma receptor A (EphA) is associated with angiogenesis and invasive tumor progression. In this study, we evaluated the EphA1-4 expression levels in advanced gastric cancer. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Tumor tissues obtained from 114 patients with advanced gastric adenocarcinoma who underwent gastrectomy were analyzed. In addition, the impact of EPHA 1-4 mRNA expression on survival was analyzed using the Kaplan-Meier plotter database on the website...

BACKGROUND: Interleukin-1β (IL-1β) is a pivotal proinflammatory cytokine that is strongly associated with the inflammation of gout. However, the underlying mechanism through which the production of IL-1β is regulated has not been fully elucidated. Our previous work identified that miR-302b had an important immune regulatory role in bacterial lung infections. This study was conducted to evaluate the function of miR-302b on monosodium urate (MSU) crystal-induced inflammation and its mechanism...

The corneal endothelium is a monolayer of epithelial cells that lines the posterior surface of the cornea and is essential for maintenance of corneal transparency. Wound healing within the corneal endothelium typically occurs through cell spreading and migration rather than through proliferation. The mechanisms that control corneal endothelial cell migration are unclear. In this study we demonstrate that cultures of corneal endothelial cells display reduced migration in scratch wound assays, and reduced levels of E-cadherin mRNA, following suppression of ligand-activated Eph receptor signalling by treatment with lithocholic acid...

EphA2 overexpression has been associated with metastasis in multiple cancer types, including melanomas and ovarian, prostate, lung, and breast cancers. We have recently proposed the development of peptide-drug conjugates (PDCs) using agonistic EphA2-targeting agents, such as the YSA peptide or its optimized version, 123B9. Although our studies indicated that YSA- and 123B9-drug conjugates can selectively deliver cytotoxic drugs to cancer cells in vivo, the relatively low cellular agonistic activities (i.e., the high micromolar concentrations required) of the agents toward the EphA2 receptor remained a limiting factor to the further development of these PDCs in the clinic...

Early studies indicated that testicular nuclear receptor 4 (TR 4 ) could function as a suppressor in the transcriptional regulation of the HBV core gene expression, which might then influence the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The direct linkage between TR 4 and HCC progression, however, remained unclear. Here, via a human clinical sample survey, we found that 13 of the 18 HCC patients studied had lower TR 4 expression in metastatic lesions than in matched primary HCC lesions, suggesting that TR 4 may play a negative role in HCC metastasis...

In the version of this Article originally published, technical problems led to errors in Figs. 2d and 5b. In the western blot panel in Fig. 2d, actin bands were misaligned at the bottom of the image and did not line up with the other bands in the panel; the corrected figure is shown below. In Fig. 5b, the upper right panel had an incorrect title of 'CXCL3/KC'; it should have instead been 'CXCL1/KC'. These errors have now been corrected in all versions of the Article.

Objective: To construct lentiviral-mediated EphA2 overexpression vectors, transfect them into human lens epithelial cells (HLE-B3) in vitro, and investigate the effect of EphA2 gene overexpression on the proliferation and apoptosis of HLE-B3 exposed to high-concentration dexamethasone. Methods: Experimental Study. The pCDH-CMV- MCS-EF1-RFP plasmid was set up by the digestion of NOTⅠand XbaⅠ double restriction enzyme and ligation of CE ligase, and then the plasmid was transformed into DH10B cells. Seven clons were picked for enzymatic digestion and the clons with correct results were chosen for sequencing...

Cellular senescence is a cellular program that prevents the proliferation of cells at risk of neoplastic transformation. On the other hand, age-related accumulation of senescent cells promotes aging at least partially due to the senescence-associated secretory phenotype, whereby cells secrete high levels of inflammatory cytokines, chemokines, and matrix metalloproteinases. Emerging evidence, however, indicates that extracellular vesicles (EVs) are important mediators of the effects of senescent cells on their microenvironment...

PURPOSE: Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is commonly used to treat patients with locally advanced breast cancer and a common option for primary operable disease. However, systemic toxicity including cardiotoxicity and inefficient delivery are significant challenges form any chemotherapeutics. The development of targeted treatments that lower the risk of toxicity has, therefore, become an active area of research in the field of novel cancer therapeutics. Mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) have attracted significant attention as efficient drug delivery carriers, due to their high surface area and tailorable mesoporous structures...

BACKGROUND: Eradication of malaria is difficult because of the ability of hypnozoite, the dormant liver-stage form of Plasmodium vivax, to cause relapse in patients. Research efforts to better understand the biology of P. vivax hypnozoite and design relapse prevention strategies have been hampered by the lack of a robust and reliable model for in vitro culture of liver-stage parasites. Although the HC-04 hepatoma cell line is used for culturing liver-stage forms of Plasmodium, these cells proliferate unrestrictedly and detach from the culture dish after several days, which limits their usefulness in a long-term hypnozoite assay...

Angiogenesis plays an important role in bladder cancer (BCa). The immunosuppressive drug leflunomide has attracted worldwide attention. However, the effects of leflunomide on angiogenesis in cancer remain unclear. Here, we report the increased expression of soluble ephrin-A1 (sEphrin-A1) in supernatants of BCa cell lines (RT4, T24, and TCCSUP) co-cultured with human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) compared with that in immortalized uroepithelial cells (SV-HUC-1) co-cultured with HUVECs. sEphrin-A1 is released from BCa cells as a monomeric protein that is a functional form of the ligand...

Purpose: Progenitor cells of the limbal epithelium reside in a discrete area peripheral to the more differentiated corneal epithelium and maintain tissue homeostasis. What regulates the limbal-corneal epithelial boundary is a major unanswered question. Ephrin-A1 ligand is enriched in the limbal epithelium, whereas EphA2 receptor is concentrated in the corneal epithelium. This reciprocal pattern led us to assess the role of ephrin-A1 and EphA2 in limbal-corneal epithelial boundary organization...

BACKGROUND: Breast cancer is an alarming global public health problem and a main cause of cancer-related death in women. Systemic chemotherapy is the most widely used treatment for breast cancer. However, current chemotherapy treatments are far from desirable due to poor targeting specificity, severe side effects, and vasculogenic mimicry (VM). PURPOSE: Hyaluronic acid (HA) modified daunorubicin plus honokiol cationic liposomes were prepared and characterized for treatment of breast cancer by eliminating VM...

Proteolytic cleavage of membrane proteins can alter their functions depending on the cleavage sites. We recently demonstrated that membrane type 1 matrix metalloproteinase (MT1-MMP ) converts the tumor suppressor EphA2 into an oncogenic signal transducer through EphA2 cleavage. The cleaved EphA2 fragment that remains at the cell surface may be a better target for cancer therapy than intact EphA2. To analyze the cleavage site(s) of EphA2, we purified the fragments from tumor cells expressing MT1-MMP and Myc- and 6× His-tagged EphA2 by two-step affinity purification ...

Pazopanib, a multitarget tyrosine kinase (TK) inhibitor, has been approved for treatment of soft tissue sarcoma. Elucidation of the molecular background of pazopanib resistance should lead to improved clinical outcomes in sarcomas; accordingly, we investigated this in synovial sarcoma using a proteomic approach. Pazopanib sensitivity was examined in four synovial sarcoma cell lines: SYO-1, HS-SYII, 1273/99, and YaFuSS. The 1273/99 cell line showed significantly higher IC50 values than the others for pazopanib...

We present a strategy to discover recombinant monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) to specific cancers and demonstrate this approach using basal subtype breast cancers. A phage antibody library was depleted of antibodies to common cell surface molecules by incubation with luminal breast cancer cell lines, and then selected on a single basal-like breast cancer cell line (MDA-MB-231) for binding associated receptor-mediated endocytosis. Additional profiling against two luminal and four basal-like cell lines revealed 61 unique basal-specific mAbs from a pool of 1440 phage antibodies...

The invasion of malignant cells into tissue is a critical step in the progression of cancer. While it is increasingly appreciated that cells within a tumor differ in their invasive potential, it remains nearly unknown how these differences relate to cell-to-cell variations in protein expression. Here, we introduce a microfluidic platform that integrates measurements of invasive motility and protein expression for single cells, which we use to scrutinize human glioblastoma tumor-initiating cells (TICs). Our live-cell imaging microdevice is comprised of polyacrylamide microchannels that exhibit tissue-like stiffness and present chemokine gradients along each channel...

The Eph receptor tyrosine kinase family member EphA2 plays a pivotal role in modulating cytoskeletal dynamics to control cancer cell motility and invasion. EphA2 is frequently upregulated in diverse solid tumors and has emerged as a viable druggable target. We previously reported that extracellular Hsp90 (eHsp90), a known pro-motility and invasive factor, collaborates with EphA2 to regulate tumor invasion in the absence of its cognate ephrin ligand. Here, we aimed to further define the molecular and functional relationship between EphA2 and eHsp90...

BACKGROUND: EphA2 is a crucial oncogene in gastric cancer (GC) development and metastasis, this study aims to identify microRNAs that target it and serve as key regulators of gastric carcinogenesis. METHODS: We identified several potential microRNAs targeting EphA2 by bioinformatics websites and then analyzed the role of miR-302b in modulating EphA2 in vitro and in vivo of GC, and it's mechanism. RESULTS: Our analysis identified miR-302b, a novel regulator of EphA2, as one of the most significantly downregulated microRNA (miRNA) in GC tissues...

The Eph/ephrin receptor ligand system is known to play a role in inflammation induced by infection, injury, and inflammatory diseases. The present study aimed to evaluate plasma EphA2 receptor levels in critically ill patients with sepsis. This study was a prospective cohort study evaluating samples and clinical data from the medical intensive care unit (MICU) of a 2000-bed university tertiary referral hospital in South Korea. Positive correlations of the plasma EphA2 receptor level with the acute physiology and chronic health evaluation (APACHE) II score and the sequential organ failure assessment (SOFA) score were observed...